Faced with Chu Mu's question, Kafka readily nodded in admission:
"That is what I have in mind. Perhaps he'll see it as a mission I've assigned him, or a boring game of playing house. Perhaps neither of us can change him, but how will we know unless we try? Just look at Silver Wolf. She sounded so reluctant at first, but she ended up shedding plenty of tears over you."
Chu Mu: "..."
Kafka smiled then and said:
"But fortunately, none of this is too late, is it? As long as we take action, it's never too late."
Chu Mu fell silent for a long time before saying:
"Kafka, I don't have much time left."
The twenty-year deadline was drawing near. Chu Mu would have to return to Deep Blue Star and take the Black Sun into himself.
What would happen then was impossible to predict.
If, as his previous incarnation had said, Chu Mu truly became an Aeon after taking in the Black Sun-
Would the Chu Mu of that time still be Chu Mu?
Aeons opened Paths, but they were also bound by them.
And the Path of his previous incarnation, that Path that demanded blind obedience-once Chu Mu became one with it, he would inevitably be influenced by it as well.
Would he become just as brutal and cold as his previous incarnation had after attaining godhood, treating mortals as playthings?
The man he would become-no, the god!
Would that god still be able to stay close to Kafka and the others?
The atmosphere grew heavy for a moment.
Stelle muttered under her breath:
"You just told us not to copy the High-Cloud Quintet, and now you're reenacting their tragedy. Chu Mu, you're seriously so... you're always messing with our heads. Can't you just stay? It's not